The rent aid New Yorkers need: A strike is only going to hurt the people it aims to help

By Rafael E. Cestero and Alicia Glen

New York Daily News|

Apr 28, 2020 | 5:00 AM

Be smart about rent relief. (Hans Pennink/AP)

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced countless businesses to close and pushed millions of Americans into unemployment. This crisis is hitting low-income, marginalized and underserved communities the hardest: communities that in the best of times are already struggling with housing affordability and quality, economic disparity and poverty.

Scores of people are trying to figure out if they’re going to pay rent or pay for life’s basic necessities, and we can expect many more to join this group as the crisis continues.

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Unfortunately, some advocates are calling for rent strikes beginning on May 1.

Why? There is no evidence, or even a suggestion, that there is widespread harassment of tenants or failure to provide essential services like heat and hot water. So a rent strike is purely punitive and meant to send a message, and the message is that the people advocating for it don’t have any better ideas.

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This is a particularly senseless time to pit renters against owners when their interests are actually aligned. Renters want to pay their rent and live in well-maintained buildings. The vast majority of owners want to be able to provide those things, but they need rental income to do it.

Most rental buildings aren’t giant luxury properties. In fact, 40% of the city’s rental apartments are in buildings with 50 units or less. These buildings tend to be older, need more maintenance, and have less financial reserves available to deal with an extended crisis and a massive loss of income. Right now, they’re in the same boat as everybody else and a rent strike would put them in a dangerous position.

Instead of going off the deep end with calls for a strike, we should be using our collective voices to demand that Congress provide the resources we need to support renters, help building owners and keep communities strong.

Congress has been looking at providing $100 billion in emergency rental assistance. That’s a great start, but we need to modify the qualifying standards to make sure assistance is available to anybody who can prove COVID-related displacement or loss of income.

This infusion of short-term rental income would provide stability in a time of crisis. Rent pays for the upkeep and maintenance of buildings, from fixing plumbing and exterminating to replacing roofs and boilers. And in this COVID-19 era, it also pays for measures to sanitize common areas, provide PPE for staff, and other items to keep tenants safe.

Rental income also pays for taxes, mortgages and other obligations. Giving tenants assistance specifically to pay rent could stave off a rash of defaulted mortgages. A new mortgage crisis would primarily affect rental properties for low-, moderate- and middle-income households, leading to a staggering disinvestment in, or loss of, affordable housing — hitting those most at-risk tenants the hardest.

With the billions of federal money being pumped into recovery, our federal leaders must summon the political will to fund Section 8 vouchers for all extremely low-income households, especially for low-income seniors who are living on fixed incomes.

This would ensure the long-term stability of our most vulnerable Americans, the ones who were at risk of homelessness before the COVID-19 outbreak. The cost would be significant, but allowing them to fall through the cracks would have a much higher cost by creating massive pressures on our other social safety nets.

This is not a time for bumper sticker politics. There is no bad guy to point fingers at, and a rent strike isn’t going to solve any of the problems our housing ecosystem is facing.

The only way to keep people in their homes, ensure quality housing, and keep buildings financial stable is to ensure that rent gets paid on time.

Glen is the former deputy mayor for New York City. Cestero is the former commissioner of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development. He is currently the president and CEO of The Community Preservation Corp.